


The Phoenix Initiative

by RandomSlasher (Randomslasher)



Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Angst, Fix-It, Gen, Sort of Avatar-inspired
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-17
Updated: 2012-06-17
Packaged: 2017-11-07 22:30:14
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 410
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/436148
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Randomslasher/pseuds/RandomSlasher
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Just a few more minutes. He could hold on that long.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Phoenix Initiative

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired and loosely based on Avatar.

Pain. 

It was all he knew, and it absorbed the core of his existence. Ripping, tearing pain. Cells tearing themselves apart. His heart, pumping desperately, but doing nothing but spilling more blood through the gaping wounds in his back and his chest. Through the single wound that shattered his ribs and sternum, pierced his lung, and gouged his heart. 

Fatal. 

_Fatal. Why are they still...?_

“Stay awake, Agent Coulson. Just a little longer. Stay _awake.”_

All around him, a flurry of activity. Doctors, nurses. Some faces vaguely familiar, some not. A mask was pushed over his nose and mouth, and he choked, trying to bat it away. 

“Don’t fight it, sir. Just breathe. Keep breathing. Just a few more minutes.” 

There was no point. A few seconds or minutes or hours, it didn’t matter. The wound was fatal. His body shouldn’t have been able to stay alive as long as it had already. 

A sudden jolt made his heart beat faster still, and he realized distantly that he’d been given adrenaline. He cried out weakly, shaking his head. This was worse than dying. Why wouldn’t they just let him...? 

Nick Fury’s face appeared in front of him. “Hold on, Coulson,” he said. “Just a few more minutes. Hold on.” 

_Sir, there’s no point,_ he tried to say. 

_I’m dying, sir,_ he tried to say. 

_Please let me go, sir,_ he tried to say. 

What came out was a small half-gurgle, half-moan. 

Fury still seemed to understand. A gentle hand came to rest on his brow. “Just a few more minutes, Coulson. I promise. A few more minutes and it’ll all be over.” 

_Why, sir? Why?_ Seconds were agonizing centuries. Minutes...minutes were asking the impossible. Minutes were eons. Eons of nothing but bright, white hot pain. 

“Bring it over!” Fury snapped, and when Coulson turned his head, he found himself staring at a body on a stretcher, hooked to more wires and tubes than even he was. And as someone pulled the sheet away, he found himself staring at his own face, lax and unanimated. 

_The Phoenix Initiative,_ his brain supplied, and he closed his eyes, focusing all his strength on making his lungs work, on keeping his heart pumping blood through the gaping hole in his body. 

_Just a few minutes,_ he thought as they began to hook sensors up to his head, wires connecting him to the duplicate body. 

Just a few more minutes.

He could do it. 

* * *


End file.
